home from 1860 to 1870. The house lies on the London road
a few miles west of Rochester, and can easily be seen to-day, almost
unaltered, by the passer-by. It had caught his fancy in his childhood
before the age of ten when he was walking with his father, and his
father had promised that, if he would only work hard enough, he might
one day live in it. The associations of the place with the Falstaff
scenes in _Henry IV_ had also endeared it to him; and so, when in 1855
he heard that it was for sale, he jumped at the opportunity. For some
years after purchasing it he let it to tenants, but from 1860 he made it
his permanent abode. It has no architectural features to charm the eye;
with its many changes and additions made for comfort, its bow-windows
and the plantations in the garden, it is a typical Victorian home. Here
Dickens could live at ease, surrounded by his children, his dogs, his
books, his souvenirs of his friends, and the Kentish scenery which he
loved. To the north lay the flat marshlands of the lower Thames, to the
south and west lay rolling hills crowned with woodlands, with hop
gardens on the lower slopes; to the east lay the valley of the Medway
with the quaint old streets of Rochester and the bustling dockyard of
Chatham. All that makes the familiar beauty and richness of English
landscape was here, above all the charm of associations. So many names
preserved memories of his books. To Rochester the Pickwickians had
driven on their first search for knowledge; to Cobham Mr. Winkle had
fled, and at the 'Leather Bottle' his friends had found him; in the
marshlands Joe Gargery and Pip had watched for the escaped convict; in
the old gateway by the cathedral Jasper had entertained Edwin Drood on
the eve of his disappearance; along that very high-road over which
Dickens's windows looked the child David Copperfield had tramped in his
journey from London to Dover.

Meanwhile, though his creative vein may have been less fertile than of
old, his efforts for the good of his fellow men were no less continuous
and sincere. His first books had aimed at killing by ridicule certain
social institutions which had sunk into abuses. The pictures of
parliamentary elections, of schools, of workhouses, had not only created
a hearty laugh, but they had disposed the public to listen to the
reformers and to realize the need for reform. As he grew older he went
deeper into the evil, and he also blended his reforming purpose better
w